


equal to a god

by xpityx



Series: catullus 51 [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 22:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: “I’m sorry my dear, I believe I have given you quite a shock. I thought you knew.”“Knew what?” Crowley asked, his voice strange to his ears.“That I love you.”





	equal to a god

**Author's Note:**

> ̶V̶E̶R̶Y̶ ̶U̶N̶B̶E̶T̶A̶'̶D̶ ̶-̶ ̶I̶'̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶a̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶m̶m̶a̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶s̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶i̶m̶p̶u̶l̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶N̶O̶W̶.̶ ̶ Checked by my babe SlumberousTrash <3
> 
> Will most likely be the first of a two-part series.

_equal to a god, he who gets to watch you_

Catullus 51 [excerpt] - Gaius Valerius Catullus

  


Aziraphale had suggested the  _ crêpes suzette _ for dessert that evening but Crowley had steered him towards the white chocolate mousse instead as he was in no mood for the tableside pyromaniacal performance that the crêpes required. Even a month after the apocalypse-that-wasn’t he felt he’d had quite enough of fire for the foreseeable future.

 

There was no need for any minor miracles while they waited for a black cab to appear outside the restaurant, as the drivers themselves were capable of manoeuvers that defied all laws of physics. Crowley made a lazy hailing gesture and, four seconds later, a black cab did a U-turn in the busy London traffic, missing two cyclists, a pedestrian, and several cars by mere millimetres before skidding to stop just in front of them. 

 

“After you,” Crowley said, opening a door for Aziraphale with a flourish.

 

“Thank you, my dear.”

 

Aziraphale gave the driver the address and they were off, weaving in and out of traffic and leaving a cacophony of horns sounding in their wake. Aziraphale gave him a stern look but Crowley just shrugged. Black cab drivers were nothing to do with him: they were a human invention. 

 

Crowley tipped the driver well—as one agent of chaos to another—once they had safely arrived outside the bookshop. 

 

They’d finished off a bottle of Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Françaises 2005 over dinner which had reminded Crowley of the 1985 vintage that he’d once had the opportunity to try. He’d never been able to find another that hadn’t suffered the enormous indignity of cork taint, but perhaps now he had the time he could put some serious effort into the search. He wasn’t sure that Aziraphale’d had the pleasure, now he thought of it, so it would make a good gift if he could find one of the blessed things. 

 

He stopped abruptly just inside the study in order to avoid ploughing into a suddenly stationary Angel. Crowley tensed, half a second from grabbing him and winging it out of there, away from whatever new bullshit had appeared in their lives.

 

There was nothing out of the ordinary apparent to his senses though, and Aziraphale simply turned and regarded him with a serious look.

 

“You haven’t heard from your former superiors, have you?” he asked.

 

“What? No!” Crowley couldn’t help the lurch of guilt he felt at the question. He really  _ hadn’t _ heard from them, but he felt a little guilty regardless. He’d never quite been able to work out what had led him to Fall in the first place, and he had a—mostly unacknowledged—fear of falling foul of some unspoken rule of their Arrangement. 

 

“Have you tried to contact them?”

 

Crowley nodded, wary of Aziraphale’s reaction. He had tried using the radio as a conduit before procuring himself some blood and trying a more traditional way of calling Hell. Nothing either time, which suggested he was well and truly free of the fuckers.

 

“And?” Aziraphale prompted.

 

“No reply, not even static.”

 

Crowley shifted a little under Aziraphale’s continued scrutiny, wondering how he could possibly move the conversation onto something else. He mentally flicked through his collection of knock knock jokes. Aziraphale loved those. 

 

“OK, I’ve got a good one for you—” 

 

He came to a screeching halt as Aziraphale stepped forward into his personal space and placed the soft tips of his fingers to Crowley’s jaw. Reaching up, he carefully removed Crowley’s sunglasses, folding them into his top pocket.

 

“We are safe then,” Aziraphale said, as if that somehow explained why he was touching Crowley so gently, why he was touching Crowley at all.

 

“I’m sorry, my love,” he continued. “I think I have hurt you over the years, but now you have seen them—seen what Heaven has become—you understand why I had to protect you.”

 

He looked a little disappointed when Crowley didn’t respond, but Crowley had lost all language, beyond even the ancient tongue that God had spoken to him in. He wondered wildly for a moment if the world had ended after all, if so, someone had made a mistake and sent him upstairs instead of down.

 

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in his own, entwining their fingers together and bringing his hand up to his mouth to press a light kiss to Crowley’s knuckles. Crowley felt that he should be on fire, that he should be burning, to have such a holy gesture bestowed on him. He couldn’t make sense of it—they had been in the Ritz, hadn’t they? Then there had been a taxi ride, and now he was here, bowed under the weight of Aziraphale’s tenderness. 

 

“I have to go,” he announced. Though, if pressed, he wouldn’t have been able to remember what language he said it in. He ripped himself away from Aziraphale, taking two steps into the cool darkness of the shop itself.

 

He put his hands over his face, trying to stem the terrible feeling that was clawing its way up his body: thickening his throat and blurring his eyes. He felt Aziraphale come up behind him, then two light hands at his waist.

 

“I’m sorry my dear, I believe I have given you quite a shock. I thought you knew.”

 

“Knew what?” Crowley asked, his voice strange to his ears.

 

“That I love you.” 

 

Crowley shook his head.

 

“I don’t understand,” he admitted. 

 

“Will you come sit with me?” Aziraphale asked, turning Crowley slowly in his arms.

 

Crowley took his hands away from his face but then couldn’t work out what to do with them. Aziraphale was so close that the only place to put them was on the Angel, but he didn’t know if that was permitted so he tucked them under his arms and nodded. He was sure he would be very embarrassed about all this presently and would have to do something dramatic to distract Aziraphale for his little breakdown. However, for the moment at least, any and all feelings of mortification were safely distant—on the other side of whatever  _ this _ was. 

 

Aziraphale arranged them on the sofa to his liking, sat sideways so he could look earnestly at Crowley. He’d seen the look before over the years, had even imagined what it might mean, but it had been a fantasy: an idle hope to sooth away the long lonely years. 

 

Crowley screwed up his courage.

 

“Don’t give me this and then take it away again: I couldn’t stand it,” he told his knees. 

 

His thoughts skittered madly away from him, fleeing into dark corners as Aziraphale again took his hand. 

 

“I am run through with you, my dear: I could no more leave you than I could leave myself.” 

 

Crowley nodded. What else could he do? He wasn’t strong enough to say no, not when offered something he so desperately wanted. Perhaps that was the reason why he had Fallen. Even with the thought he might someday take the Angel down with him, he couldn’t bring himself to say no.

 

“I’m no good, you know,” he said, while they were being painfully honest with each other. 

 

“You are to me.” 

 

Crowley nodded again, already feeling like an idiot about it. 

 

“I think I interrupted you earlier, my dear. What were you going to tell me?”

 

Well, he couldn’t embarrass himself any more than he had already, he reasoned. 

 

“Knock, knock,” he intoned.

 

Aziraphale perked up, his eyes widening in delight.

 

“Who’s there?”

 

“To,” Crowley replied.

 

“To who?”

 

Crowley paused, if he ignored the fact that Aziraphale was holding his hand between both of his own he could almost pretend this was a normal evening. He straightened up and attempted to put a little pizazz into the reveal.

 

“To  _ whom _ .”

 

Aziraphale giggled: that was the only word for it. He giggled and sighed a contented little sigh. Crowley, carefully in case he was not allowed, tilted his head so he could rest it on Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale pulled them both down on the sofa until they lay entangled together, his white wings rendering the light of the shop dim and distant. Crowley’s own wings flared around him in sympathy, a distant echo of what he had once been, when the white wings of his endless siblings had always called his own into being. 

 

“Do you have any others?” Aziraphale asked, as he carded his fingers through Crowley’s flight feathers.

 

Crowley took an unnecessary breath and proceeded to tell him every knock knock joke he’d ever known. 

  
  


 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to the black cab driver who once got me from Angel to Euston in 11 minutes.
> 
> I can be found on [Tumblr](https://xpityx.tumblr.com), but if you're just looking for writing updates then I use my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic) for those.


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